Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Dr. Christopher J. Lamb is Director of the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National
Strategic Studies (INSS), at the National Defense University. Ms. Susan Stipanovich is Program
Manager for the Program on Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Studies at INSS. For an indepth explanation of the Bosnia Train and Equip task force and its performance, see The Bosnian Train
and Equip Program: A Lesson in Interagency Integration of Hard and Soft Power, Strategic Perspectives
15 (NDU Press, March 2014).
Countering Hybrid
Warfare in the Balkans
In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia disintegrated in the wake of the Soviet Unions
demise, releasing a mix of nationalist
and ethnic movements. Ill-disciplined
combinations of regular and irregular
forces struggled to control territory
and protect or herd civilians in attempts
to produce ethnically homogenous
populations, a process widely referred
to as ethnic cleansing. Serb forces,
which had inherited the most personnel
and weapons from the former Yugoslav
army, captured 70 percent of Bosnia
and laid siege to Sarajevo. By late 1992,
it was clear that the better equipped and
trained Serbs were particularly guilty of
ethnic cleansing, having placed thousands of Bosniak men in concentration
camps and women in rape camps.
They also destroyed non-Serb cultural
and religious sites and ransacked and
burned non-Serb homes.
In February 1992, the United
Nations (UN) Security Council had
formed a protective force to facilitate a
ceasefire in Croatia and secure conditions
for peace talks. In June, the Security
Council extended its mission to cover
the Sarajevo airport and later widened it
again to provide protection of humanitarian aid deliveries. By February 1993,
9,000 UN troops were protecting six
specifically designated Bosnian safe
areas or security zones from Serb forces:
Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Gorade, Bihac,
epa, and Tuzla. NATO backed up the
UN forces with promises of air support
in case military force was necessary to
protect the enclaves.
Meanwhile, European diplomats
struggled to find a political solution
that would end the fighting. But after
two primarily European diplomatic
initiatives (the Carrington-Cutileiro and
Vance-Owen plans) failed to quell the
fighting or stop atrocities, pressure for
U.S. intervention increased. Shortly after
taking office in early 1993, President
Bill Clinton decided on a lift and strike
policy for Bosniathat is, lifting the
arms embargo and employing limited
airstrikes against Serb targets. However,
contentious issues. Finally, the parties agreed to terms, and the Bosnian,
Croat, and Serb leaders signed what
became known as the Dayton Accords on
December 14, 1995.
The Train and Equip Program.
A military assistance program for the
Bosnians was part of the Dayton Accords,
in part because Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic refused to sign the agreement without a U.S. commitment to
train and equip his forces. But the program also had the support of several key
Members of Congress and senior Clinton
administration officials. As Secretary of
Defense William Perry stated in justifying the program, To achieve a lasting
peace in the Balkans, it will be essential to
achieve stable and balanced force levels
within Bosnia-Herzegovina and among
the states of the former Yugoslavia.10
The Dayton Accords were widely
judged to be fragile. The warring parties were expected to renew fighting if
NATO forces left, so the initial 1-year
duration for international peacekeeping
forces (IFOR) was considered a waffle
of the first order, an impractical, glaring signal that U.S. commitment was
limited.11 The precarious peace and short
1-year IFOR tenure underscored the
sensitivity and urgency attached to the
Train and Equip Program. The primary
objective of the program was to create a
military balance of power in Bosnia by
offsetting Serb advantages. If IFOR was
only going to stay a year, it was imperative the program begin immediately and
be executed rapidly.
The United States also intended to
use the Train and Equip Program to
strengthen the Bosniak-Croat Federation.
A key assumption was that cooperation
between the Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks
on security matters would facilitate progress in other sectors. Without agreement
on security, it was difficult to imagine
much political progress in the federation.
The sooner the Federation Ministry of
Defense was integrated and working
smoothly, the more likely it was that
other aspects of postwar reconstruction
would gather momentum.
The final objective of the program
was to orient Bosnia toward the West,
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudman sign Washington Agreement, March 1994 (Central Intelligence Agency)
Notes
1
U.S. Strategy Against ISIS, C-SPAN.
org, September 16, 2015.
2
Department of Defense, Statement on
Syria, Release No: NR-392-15, October 9,
2015.
3
Tara McKelvey, Arming Syrian Rebels:
Where the U.S. Went Wrong, BBC News,
October 10, 2015.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Julian E. Barnes, Adam Entous, and
Carol E. Lee, Obama Proposes $500
Million to Aid Syrian Rebels, Wall Street
Journal, June 26, 2014.
7
T.X. Hammes, Raising and Mentoring
Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, in
Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long
War, ed. Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph
J. Collins (Washington, DC: NDU Press,
2015).
8
Joe Gould, Was Syrian Train-andEquip Effort Always a Mission Impossible?
Defense News, September 21, 2015.
9
Roy Gutman, What Really Happened
to the U.S. Train-and-Equip Program in
Syria? McClatchyDC.com, December 21,
2015.
awarded the contract to MPRI, a decision that had unanimous support. The
company was well known for its work in
Croatia, and Pardew believed that the
company was committed to the mission and took pride in facilitating the
execution of U.S. foreign policy. With
experience working in the region, MPRI
understood the conflict and the challenges it would be facing.
The Train and Equip staff also began
negotiating with the Department of the
Army on what material could be drawn
down from Army stocks. Ultimately, the
program secured a wide range of light
lethal and nonlethal assistance, including 45,100 M16 rifles, 1,000 machine
guns, an assortment of field radios and
telephones, and other gear. The heavy
equipment included 45 upgraded
Vietnam-era M60A3 main battle tanks,
80 armored personnel carriers, 840 light
antitank weapons, and 15 Huey utility helicopters.15 Train and Equip also
obtained other items from U.S. excess
and periodically review the terms of reference for the teams led by Holbrooke and
Pardew. Approving the mechanism and
procedures would be a worthy objective
for NATOs July 2016 Warsaw Summit.
Certainly these steps would be more
practical than more speeches on the importance of hybrid warfare or debates about
the concepts definitional parameters. JFQ
Notes
1
Frank G. Hoffman, On Not-So-New
Warfare: Political Warfare vs. Hybrid Threats,
WarontheRocks.com, July 28, 2014, available at
<http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/onnot-so-new-warfare-political-warfare-vs-hybridthreats/>.
2
Jens Stoltenberg, remarks at the World
Economic Forum, January 22, 2016, in U.S.
Department of Defense News Transcript, Remarks by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in
Plenary Session at the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2016,
available at <www.defense.gov/News/NewsTranscripts/Transcript-View/Article/644253/
remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-ash-carter-inplenary-session-at-the-world-econ>.
3
Ibid. These leaders have been making
these same points over the past year. See Ashton Carter, U.S., Germany, and NATO Are
Moving Forward Together, speech, Atlantik
Brcke, Berlin, Germany, June 22, 2015, available at <www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/
Speech-View/Article/606684/remarks-atatlantik-brcke-us-germany-nato-are-movingforward-together>.
4
Robert Work, The Third Offset Strategy
and Americas Allies and Partners, speech,
Royal United Services Institute, London, September 10, 2015.
5
Czech Rep; MoD Mulls Establishment of
Hybrid Warfare Unit, Defense Market Intelligence, January 19, 2016, available at <www.
dmilt.com/europe/czech-rep-mod-mullsestablishment-of-hybrid-warfare-unit>.
6
Representative Mac Thornberry (RTX), Chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, included a provision in the 2016
National Defense Authorization Act to this
effect. See Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The New
Type of War That Finally Has the Pentagons
Attention, New York Times, July 3, 2015.
7
Compare, for example, Alexander Lanoszka, Russian Hybrid Warfare and Extended
Deterrence in Eastern Europe, International
Affairs 92, no. 1 (January 2016); and Patrick
Duggan, Man, Computer and Special Warfare, Small Wars Journal, January 4, 2016.
8
Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New
York: Random House, 1998), 61.
9
Bill Clinton, Remarks on the Balkan
Peace Process and an Exchange with Reporters, Washington, DC, October 31, 1995.
10
House Foreign Relations Committee,
prepared statement of Secretary of Defense William Perry, The Deployment of Troops to Bosnia,
November 30, 1995. Perry made the same
point privately to President Izetbegovic. Derek
Chollet, The Road to Dayton Accords: A Study of
American Statecraft (London: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2005), 169.
11
David Halberstam in Chollet, 196.
12
These and other attributes were repeatedly mentioned in discussions of the program
and codified in the National Security Council
(NSC) documents. See, for example, Equipping and Training the Federation, tab C,
September 29, 1995, Deputies Committee
Meeting, Declassified Document C05961572,
September 21, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and
the Clinton Presidency.
13
Institute for Defense Analyses, Assessment of Military Stabilization Options for
Bosnia-Herzegovina, report summary, January
1996, 1. Also, NSC Memorandum, Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC
Deputies Committee, Declassified Document
C05962049, October 6, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.
14
Jim Pardew, U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans,
personal journal (March 1996February 1997),
March 15, 1996.
15
International Crisis Group, A Peace, or
Just a Ceasefire? The Military Equation in Post
Dayton Bosnia, ICG Bosnia Project, December 15, 1997, 18.
16
The Washington Posts John Pomfret was
transparent in arguing that he believed European officials were correct. See John Pomfret,
Waiting for the War Next Time, Washington
Post, June 1, 1997, C2.
17
Pardew journal (December 1995March
1996), January 7, 1996.
18
Pardew journal (March 1996February
1997), June 14, 1996.
19
As early as 1992, a Central Intelligence
Agency assessment noted, the United Kingdom
appears to be the most leery among West Europeans of any military involvement in Bosnia.
European Views on the Use of Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, declassified intelligence
memorandum, DCI Interagency Balkan Task
Force, August 10, 1992, available at <www.foia.
cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-andclinton-presidency?page=10>.
20
Interview with General Dzemal Najetovic
by author, September 14, 2010.
21
International Crisis Group.
22
Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb,
Joint Interagency Task ForceSouth: The Best
Known, Least Understood Interagency Success,
Strategic Perspectives 5 (Washington, DC:
NDU Press, June 2011).
23
We are indebted to Alexander Mattelaer
for this insight.